When it was all done, Barbara went into a different room and came back with a bottle of Irish whiskey. “It’s a Bushmills 15 year old rum-cask aged blend,” she said, setting down four small cups. None for me. “It hasn’t been sold in ten years. I think this is probably an appropriate time to break it out.”
She poured them each a small glass of the liquor, then raised hers and sipped at it, draining half the glass. The rest of the adults followed suit. They drank again, and finished the glasses. She poured them new shots.
“All right,” she said. “Here’s what I can tell you right now. I believe you. Not just because I know you, Lillian. The story sounds right, and it ties in with other rumors I’ve heard. But I’m not going to be able to just take your word for it. I’m going to have to investigate every aspect of this, and every element of your lives and stories. I need to know if there’s anything you’re not telling me, anything that could be used to discredit you after this comes to light. I need everything. It could take weeks before I’m ready to publish.
“You also need to think about your safety and this Darryl’s safety. If he’s really an ‘un-person’ then bringing pressure to bear on the DHS could cause them to move him somewhere much further away. Think Syria. They could also do something much worse.” She let that hang in the air. I knew she meant that they might kill him.
“I’m going to take this letter and scan it now. I want pictures of the two of you, now and later — we can send out a photographer, but I want to document this as thoroughly as I can tonight, too.”
I went with her into her office to do the scan. I’d expected a stylish, low-powered computer that fit in with her decor, but instead, her spare-bedroom/office was crammed with top-of-the-line PCs, big flat-panel monitors, and a scanner big enough to lay a whole sheet of newsprint on. She was fast with it all, too. I noted with some approval that she was running ParanoidLinux. This lady took her job seriously.
The computers’ fans set up an effective white-noise shield, but even so, I closed the door and moved in close to her.
“Um, Barbara?”
“Yes?”
“About what you said, about what might be used to discredit me?”
“Yes?”
“What I tell you, you can’t be forced to tell anyone else, right?”
“In theory. Let me put it this way. I’ve gone to jail twice rather than rat out a source.”
“OK, OK. Good. Wow. Jail. Wow. OK.” I took a deep breath. “You’ve heard of Xnet? Of M1k3y?”
“Yes?”
“I’m M1k3y.”
“Oh,” she said. She worked the scanner and flipped the note over to get the reverse. She was scanning at some unbelievable resolution, 10,000 dots per inch or higher, and on-screen it was like the output of an electron-tunneling microscope.
“Well, that does put a different complexion on this.”
“Yeah,” I said. “I guess it does.”
“Your parents don’t know.”
“Nope. And I don’t know if I want them to.”
“That’s something you’re going to have to work out. I need to think about this. Can you come by my office? I’d like to talk to you about what this means, exactly.”
“Do you have an Xbox Universal? I could bring over an installer.”
“Yes, I’m sure that can be arranged. When you come by, tell the receptionist that you’re Mr Brown, to see me. They know what that means. No note will be taken of you coming, and all the security camera footage for the day will be automatically scrubbed and the cameras deactivated until you leave.”
“Wow,” I said. “You think like I do.”
She smiled and socked me in the shoulder. “Kiddo, I’ve been at this game for a hell of a long time. So far, I’ve managed to spend more time free than behind bars. Paranoia is my friend.”
I was like a zombie the next day in school. I’d totaled about three hours of sleep, and even three cups of the Turk’s caffeine mud failed to jump-start my brain. The problem with caffeine is that it’s too easy to get acclimated to it, so you have to take higher and higher doses just to get above normal.
I’d spent the night thinking over what I had to do. It was like running through a maze of twisty little passages, all alike, every one leading to the same dead end. When I went to Barbara, it would be over for me. That was the outcome, no matter how I thought about it.
By the time the school day was over, all I wanted was to go home and crawl into bed. But I had an appointment at the Bay Guardian, down on the waterfront. I kept my eyes on my feet as I wobbled out the gate, and as I turned into 24th Street, another pair of feet fell into step with me. I recognized the shoes and stopped.
“Ange?”
She looked like I felt. Sleep-deprived and raccoon-eyed, with sad brackets in the corners of her mouth.
“Hi there,” she said. “Surprise. I gave myself French Leave from school. I couldn’t concentrate anyway.”
“Um,” I said.
“Shut up and give me a hug, you idiot.”
I did. It felt good. Better than good. It felt like I’d amputated part of myself and it had been reattached.
“I love you, Marcus Yallow.”
“I love you, Angela Carvelli.”
“OK,” she said breaking it off. “I liked your post about why you’re not jamming. I can respect it. What have you done about finding a way to jam them without getting caught?”
“I’m on my way to meet an investigative journalist who’s going to publish a story about how I got sent to jail, how I started Xnet, and how Darryl is being illegally held by the DHS at a secret prison on Treasure Island.”
“Oh.” She looked around for a moment. “Couldn’t you think of anything, you know, ambitious?”
“Want to come?”
“I am coming, yes. And I would like you to explain this in detail if you don’t mind.”
After all the re-tellings, this one, told as we walked to Potrero Avenue and down to 15th Street, was the easiest. She held my hand and squeezed it often.
We took the stairs up to the Bay Guardian‘s offices two at a time. My heart was pounding. I got to the reception desk and told the bored girl behind it, “I’m here to see Barbara Stratford. My name is Mr Green.”
“I think you mean Mr Brown?”
“Yeah,” I said, and blushed. “Mr Brown.”
She did something at her computer, then said, “Have a seat. Barbara will be out in a minute. Can I get you anything?”
“Coffee,” we both said in unison. Another reason to love Ange: we were addicted to the same drug.
The receptionist — a pretty latina woman only a few years older than us, dressed in Gap styles so old they were actually kind of hipster-retro — nodded and stepped out and came back with a couple of cups bearing the newspaper’s masthead.
We sipped in silence, watching visitors and reporters come and go. Finally, Barbara came to get us. She was wearing practically the same thing as the night before. It suited her. She quirked an eyebrow at me when she saw that I’d brought a date.
“Hello,” I said. “Um, this is —”
“Ms Brown,” Ange said, extending a hand. Oh, yeah, right, our identities were supposed to be a secret. “I work with Mr Green.” She elbowed me lightly.
“Let’s go then,” Barbara said, and led us back to a board-room with long glass walls with their blinds drawn shut. She set down a tray of Whole Foods organic Oreo clones, a digital recorder, and another yellow pad.
“Do you want to record this too?” she asked.
Hadn’t actually thought of that. I could see why it would be useful if I wanted to dispute what Barbara printed, though. Still, if I couldn’t trust her to do right by me, I was doomed anyway.